


The A.R.W.I.N. Protocol (Far From Home Missing Scene)

by wayward_avenger



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Peter, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Iron Dad, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter is Angry, Post-Endgame, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Precious Peter Parker, Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie), Spider-Man: Far From Home Missing Scene, Tony Stark Hologram, spiderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 13:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19746991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wayward_avenger/pseuds/wayward_avenger
Summary: So if anyone else was disappointed that Peter didn't get his own hologram from Tony at the end of Endgame or during Spiderman: FFH, this is for you! How would Peter react to seeing a message from Tony after his death? What would Tony say? I also wanted to explore a little deeper Peter's inner turmoil about how he should move forward after the events of Endgame.Warning: Some cursing (rated T for language)*****Spoiler Warning for Far From Home, obviously!





	The A.R.W.I.N. Protocol (Far From Home Missing Scene)

**Author's Note:**

> Far From Home Destroyed me and made me breathtakingly aware how not-over Endgame I am. I just want to protect my son Peter and for him to be happy...

Peter’s eyes stung as he tried to rid his mind of the images Mysterio had tortured him with. His breath hitched in his chest as his mind’s eye displayed “Anthony Edward Stark” on a crumbling storm-washed gravestone. He pinched his eyes shut until his eyelids throbbed as he tried to ignore the sight of the skeleton in the Iron Man armor.

_If you were good enough, maybe Tony would still be alive._

A sound a mix between a gasp and a sob escaped his lips and he quickened to cover his mouth with his hand.

“It’s ok, kid, I’m almost done,” Peter heard, nearly forgetting that Happy was currently performing first aid on one of his more pressing injuries. Snapping back to the present, he was once again faced with the reality that Tony wasn’t there. _What if I could have prevented his death…What if it_ is _my fault,_ Peter thought with a painful stab in his stomach. His breathing grew more and more uneven as Happy finished.

“Peter? What’s the matter; what’s wrong?” Happy asked, slightly alarmed.

“It…It’s my fault, Happy,” Peter nearly whispered.

“What’s your fault, kid?” Happy asked, confused.

“M...Mister Stark…h..he…if I h…had just been b…better, h…he might not have d…died,” Peter choked out, crying in earnest now.

“Peter,” Happy said gently, “You know that’s not true. Where is this coming from?”

Peter looked up into Happy’s concerned face, fully realizing how much the man had changed in the past few months since Tony’s death. The bodyguard had become quieter, wiser, and much more reserved.

“Mysterio,” Peter said in a low voice. “He made me see things…horrible things,” he gasped, his eyes scrunching shut, the physical pain of the memory seeping back into his core.

“What did you see, Peter?” Happy asked tentatively, almost as if he didn’t want to know the answer.

“I saw T…Tony’s grave…and his Iron Man suit came towards me, but half of it was gone and underneath w…was h…his skeleton. It was rotted and decayed and Beck told me that m…maybe if I had been better, Tony would still be alive,” Peter finished with another stifled sob. He heard Happy swear under his breath, but didn’t look up. They sat there for a few moments until Happy spoke again.

“Peter, that’s…that’s horrible. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like to see,” Happy consoled, sounding close to tears himself. “What Tony did was an isolated incident. You know Dr. Strange saw Tony as the only solution. I know we all wish we could have had a different outcome, but you can’t blame yourself. Tony wouldn’t want tha-”

“How do you know what he would have wanted?!” Peter snapped, jumping to his feet. Happy opened his mouth as if to respond, but Peter cut across him. “NO. HOW DO YOU KNOW? YOU DON’T FUCKING KNOW WHAT HE WOULD HAVE WANTED BECAUSE HE’S NOT FUCKING HERE TO TELL US,” Peter screamed in frustration. Fresh tears sprung at the corners of his eyes. He doubled over, his elbows resting on his bent knees, and his hands grabbing handfuls of his own hair in anguish. He finally sank onto his knees, his breaths coming in ragged gasps. _God, please not another panic attack_ , he thought. He already had enough of those on a day-to-day basis. He wanted to run, to shout, to scream. He wanted Happy to get angry and yell at him so that he could yell back to let out some steam from the kettle that had been boiling inside of him for the last few months. Much to his annoyance, Happy did not yell. He remained silent for a long while as Peter tried to control his breathing. Finally, Peter looked up into Happy’s sad eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Happy,” Peter said, suddenly ashamed of his outburst. “You didn’t deserve that.”

“It’s ok, kid,” Happy said quietly. “You just voiced what a lot of us were thinking anyway. Are you ok?”

Peter shrugged, “Not really.”

“You don’t have to be, Peter,” Happy said gently.

“I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know who to trust and what Mister Stark wanted me to do. I just wish he was here,” Peter mumbled dispiritedly.

“So do I, kid,” Happy responded. They both sat in silence for a few seconds before Happy spoke again, “I know you haven’t had a lot of time on your hands lately,” he said with a small attempt at a laugh, “but did you have a chance to find the A.R.W.I.N. protocol before you gave the glasses to Beck?”

“A.R.W.I.N. protocol?” Peter asked.

“It stands for ‘A Reminder When In Need’. He meant it to be a play on Arwen from Lord of the Rings. He said you’d get it. Something about a movie night after your AP tests…” Happy asked.

The memories came flooding back to Peter. He had a whole week in which he had to take 5 AP exams for Midtown. It wasn’t as though he thought he genuinely failed, but the stress of taking so many difficult exams in the span of a few days had left him dispirited and burnt out. Tony had caught onto this and subsequently holed them up in the living room of the compound with junk food and the Lord of the Rings trilogy for an epic movie night to cheer Peter up, all while reassuring Peter that he probably aced all of his exams.

 _“Telin, le, thaed. Lasto beth, nîn, tolo dan na ngalad,” [I have come to help you. Hear my voice…come back into the light.] Arwen called in the night during_ The Fellowship of the Ring _._

_“See? Come on, Pete, come back into the light!_

_“Are you seriously comparing AP exams to being stabbed by a Morgul blade?” Peter asked with a laugh. The older man met his gaze with a resigned shrug. Peter had looked at him for a few moments before shrugging as well and agreeing, “Accurate…”_

Peter came back from the memory, looking at Happy with a sad smile, “But I gave the glasses to Beck, how am I supposed to see it now?”

Happy gave him a sly smile. “Tony may have been a mess sometimes, but he always had backups,” said, waving a small flash drive in his hand. He leaned over and handed it to Peter.

“Put it in here when you ready,” Happy said, gesturing to a small projector at the back of the plane. “I’ll be in the cockpit. It’s not for me to see.” He got up, rested a hand on Peter’s shoulder and closed the door behind him. Peter simply stared at the flash drive in his hand turning it over and over between his fingers. What could Tony have left for him? When did he make this? Suddenly feeling nervous, he got up with a tight breath and put the flash drive into the machine and stepped back. The machine flickered for a moment until Tony Stark stood before him. Peter felt his breath catch in his throat and his eyes burn. _He’s not here, Peter_ , he told himself adamantly.

“Hey, kid,” Tony said, his eyes soft. “If you’re watching this, it unfortunately means that what I expected would happen all along happened and I’m no longer here. I really am sorry to leave you, Peter.” Peter flinched at the sound of his first name, rather than the usual “kid” or “Pete” as he wrapped his arms around himself, tears already forming in his eyes. Tony continued.

“I really wish I had more time to spend with you, kid, but whatever happened to me must have been for a good reason and while I don’t know exactly what that is, I know it was for you.

Truth is, the Avengers tried to rope me back into their plans on saving the world but I wasn’t having it. When you died in my arms on Titan…” Tony paused, rubbing his hand across his face, “Geez, kid, I felt like I had died along with you. I was so lost and broken after the rift with Cap and then you came along like a bright eyed, geeky, and hopeful breath of fresh air that I had not tasted in a long time. I knew from the moment I met you that I wasn’t about to screw up this chance with you…to give my life some meaning…some _true_ meaning, beyond my inventions and Stark Industries. Those things were never meant to be my legacy. _You were_. But the problem was, you weren’t there anymore. Every day you weren’t there felt like losing you all over again. The pain became so unbearable that I pushed everything down and lived in a bubble; I took Pepper and I hid from the world. Then the Avengers found me again and gave me that small glimmer of hope. Later that day, I saw that goofy picture of us with your fake internship certificate that we only made because your school wanted proof for class credit. It was then that I realized that when I went to hide in my bubble, I had left one of the most precious members of my family behind- _you_ ,” Tony pointed a finger less than six inches away from where Peter was standing.

“Well, you know the rest, time travel…time heist… yada yada yada. I’m hoping the ‘time heist’ went ok considering I’m recording this before we all ship out tomorrow. If you’re seeing this, that means that we reversed the snap and everything is back how it should be and that you’re alive- as you should be, which brings me to my next message for you. Come on, let’s sit, yeah?” Tony crouched down until he was sitting Indian style. Peter followed suit, electing to sit on his knees, his face tracked with tears.

“If I’m dead, then the world is probably going to be wondering who is going to “replace me”. I mean, of course, that’s ridiculous, I’m irreplaceable, _but_ something tells me that people may be looking to you to step into my shoes. You may have even thought that I was giving you that message too by giving you E.D.I.T.H. That’s not my intention at all. Truth is, you could never replace me, Peter, because you are so much better than me. I don’t _want_ you to be me. I want you to be you, Peter Parker. I truly believe that my reason for being alive after all those years in that cave in Afghanistan is to give one last recompense, or whatever you want to call it, to the world…and then my journey will reach its end. If it doesn’t happen on this mission, it will happen eventually. That’s just how my story is going to go, I know it. But _your_ story isn’t over, Peter. I don’t want you to be the next Iron Man. The world needs someone better now. This broken world that Thanos has created needs that youthful optimism back. It needs that hope that only you can give the world. If the world is _that_ insistent on seeing me again after my death, the only way they will is by seeing that I have passed the mantle to better hands- to your hands. I don’t mean the mantle of Iron Man. No, there’s a different title that a good friend once coined for me- _Earth’s Best Defender._ There is no one on this earth who I would trust more than you, Peter Parker. From the moment we sat in your little apartment room and you told me that, what was it? ‘When you can do the things that I can, and you don’t, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you,’ I knew you weren’t just some average 15 year old kid from Queens. You had something special that I would never have. You have more power inside of you to defend this earth than I will ever have, and I don’t mean that you can stop a bus with your bare hands or lift a collapsed building. I care that you are just, kind, loyal, and brave. I know that the world will have a voice under the protection of Spiderman because of who sits _behind_ the mask, not because of the mask itself.

Most importantly, it’s ok to be scared. It’s ok to doubt yourself sometimes. It’s ok to make mistakes. Hell, I _want_ you to make mistakes. That shows the public you’re just like them and maybe, they might come to believe that they all can have a little Spiderman in them. I know you probably don’t feel ready or that you still want to be a friendly neighborhood Spiderman, but that’s just it. This superhero gig, it changes you. From the moment that you snuck onto that spaceship, your life changed, and to quote a smartass little spiderling, “so, if anything, it’s kind of your fault”. You’ll find that bigger hero inside of you, I know it. As my old man once said, ‘Once you figure this out, you will change the world.’ I’m just sorry I won’t be around to see it, I truly am. I have a feeling it’s going to be a good one. I know I always treated you like a kid, and well, it’s because you were and are _my kid_. Truth is, I’ve always seen you as a son I never had and I’m sorry I never got to tell you that in person. Being just a small part of your life is one of the greatest gifts I have been given with my second chance at life.

So remember, stay weird, mess up, make mistakes, learn from them, lean on those around you, but always get back up. I’m so proud of you, Peter. I always have been. Everything you do comes straight from your heart. Keep leading with that heart of yours, but always remember that little gray area. I hope you don’t forget your dorky mentor too fast. I love you, kid.”

The recording flickered and died.

Peter sat there in a stunned silence, tear tracks cold on his face. After a few moments, he found his voice,

“I love you too, Mister Stark. I’ll make you proud.”

And Peter rose.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I tried not to make it too mushy (even though I love me some fluff) and I wasn't quite sure how to end it (because I wanted Tony's speech to be the main element of it), but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! I would love for you to let me know what you thought in the comment and if you also wanted a hologram scene from Tony to Peter in FFH! Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!
> 
> P.S. If you want to read a fix-it fic instead where Tony lives after he snaps, feel free to check out my other work, "Overdue"!


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